WESTFIELD – The School Committee last night rejected an alteration to the current school year calendar to allow another half-day for students and professional development day for district staff.
The committee considered a request to make June 12 a professional day, meaning that students would have an early release, to make up for a professional development day slated for Jan. 30, but missed because of a snow day.
School Committee member Ramon Diaz, who introduced the motion to change the schedule also addressed the concern of the school board which discussed the calendar change in executive session, a session held because of the possible impact of calendar changes on language of contracts with the district’s collective bargaining units.
“We understand that professional development is important, but because it is so late in the school year, the last month of school, we concur that we would not make up that half-day of professional development,” he said.
The motion to amend the calendar was rejected by a 0-7 vote.
Committeewoman Cindy Sullivan said this morning that the board felt amending the calendar would have been “too disruptive to families and parents who have to take time from work when their children have an early release.”
“I do agree with professional development. We’re still committed to it,” Sullivan said. “We’re a Level 3 district and professional development will hopefully get us on the right track toward being a Level 1 district. What we had been doing was not working. You don’t become a Level 3 district overnight, so we needed to change how we did it.”
That change is still in progress, with a revised approach to professional development that includes fewer of the half-day early releases for students and the addition of several full-day “staff development” days.
The School Committee tabled action of the proposed 2013-14 school calendar that would schedule the opening of school for all students (except kindergarten) on Aug. 29, 2013 and conclude on June 23, 2014. The district would take advantage of that calendar to slate full day staff development sessions, beginning on Aug. 28, 2013, the day prior to the first day of students’ classes.
The calendar would also take advantage of the fact that on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2013, there are no students in the school buildings, most of which are used for polling places of the city’s six wards, also using that day for professional development. Feb. 5, 2014 is also a non-student day slated for staff development.
The half-day staff development program, with early release for students, are slated for Sept. 26, Oct. 31, Dec. 4, in 2013 and for Jan. 28, April 3, May 22 and June 4 in 2014.
This past year the district slated 10 half-day professional development sessions, requiring early release of students, although the January 30 session was cancelled because of snow. The professional development days were added to the schedule to allow district-wide teacher educational programs and because of requests submitted by staff members for restoration of that professional development process which had been squeezed out of the district during previous budget crunches.
The school board tabled the issue to allow the unions to provide feedback to the district about the proposed calendar.
“The unions always get the calendar before we do because of collective bargaining impacts,” Sullivan said. “I hope that they act on it quickly because parents, and the school committee members, need to know the schedule.”
At least one resident spoke against the half-day program, stating it is disruptive to both students and staff.
Janine F. Queenin of 315 Steiger Drive said she is opposed to early release that even through the proposed 2013-14 calendar will reduce the number of early release days down to seven.
Queenin said that approach “is the wrong direction for the district’ and it “is very disruptive to parents, kids and teachers. I’ve been told by teachers in different schools that a half day in the middle of the week is like having two Mondays.”
Queenin said that she also discussed the benefits of professional development days.
“The people I talked to told me they were not that helpful,” Queenin said. “Adding these half-days to the school year is going in the wrong direction.”
